I Fell So Far (Doctor Who fic)
Title: I Fell So Far
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Ginger (OC), The Doctor (11)
Prompt: For Secret Santa Gift Exchange, for Garrett
Rating: G
Falling.
It was the sensation she had every time she fell asleep. It was an odd experience, but her mind had convinced her that it was normal. Every night she fell. She fell far and long and only the breaking of daylight would stop her fall.
She couldn’t remember a time she had fallen in reality. Oh sure, there’d been the occasional trip and stumble and scatter, but nothing like this. In those short falls there was never the sensation of weightlessness only the mere panic of your brain screaming, “WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING?” This falling was Alice like in its complexity. She wouldn’t stumble and, despite the rising fear in her throat, she felt like her falling was fated. She always felt as if it would be alright in the end.
Ginger stretched and looked out the window at the passing cloud of dust and ash. It was a miserable time of year where the Vindorians would work the forests, mining for quintorium, a special rock that grew under the trees of the great forest. They’d pillage the forest for the short two months when her home planet wasn’t covered in snow and ice. They’d set controlled fires to help aid in the undergrowth of the ice planets - the only living thing that flourished in the rough climate. Well, that and Ginger’s race, the Fiigi. Ginger wrapped her scarf around her face to attempt to block out the dust and ash that had kicked up around the small farm. Thusly prepared she moved out into the world.
The sun was scorching hot on her skin and she was grateful for the cool of the barn immediately upon entering it. The problem with having a planet with such an odd orbit around the main star was the contradicting weather patterns. She hadn’t been in the barn long when she heard a strange noise. Putting her hand on her slender laser pistol tucked into her pocket she cautiously stepped around one of the large hay bales that were stored in the barn. There was a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye and she whipped around, gun drawn, to face the person who had entered.
“Who goes there?” Ginger called gruffly as she could manage. She could see nothing. Another flash, this time she made out its shape. It was a man. A tall, thin man.
“I can see you,” Ginger said with a short huff. “Stop running about.”
“But this is what we do,” the tall man said with, what Ginger could only later describe as a pout. He walked slowly towards her with his hands half up. “Don’t shoot, I just got a new suit.”
“What we do?” Ginger asked as she kept the gun level. “What do you mean? Are you sun-sick? I don’t know you.”
“Oh yes, you do. You do Ginger Hallows of the first planet in the Q’ager system. Ginger the farmer. Ginger, who fell so far and saved the world. You remember me.”
Ginger blinked. Her dreams every night. The falling. The man.
“You were ten,” The man said as he stepped closer. Ginger could see his face now and could make out the strange brown suit he was wearing and a small red bow. “You remember.”
And she did. Suddenly like the flow of water after the first day of summer breaking the ice’s grip on her land she knew. She knew beyond the reason of knowing. They had come. In big, silver machines and ships. They had flown into her town and no one could stop them. Her father was clever, very clever, and he found a fatal flaw in their plan. The machines, the workers, the whole invasion force was run by a central computer. Destroy the computer? Destroy the enemy. She had sat on his knee as he built the device. It was slick black and small. So very small. She knew the plan by heart because he recited it over and over to get it down perfectly. Climb the tower. Press the button. Run like hell.
“But they shot him,” Ginger said, as if the conversation she had been having in her mind was shared with this impossible man in front of her. She lowered her gun.
“I know,” the man said softly. “They did.”
Ginger had never been one for fear. She was a soldier’s daughter. Her mother had left them before she’d even met Ginger, succumb to the infection that kept doctors worried about both of them. Her last breath was Ginger’s first. Good soliders never cry, her father had told her. They may be scared, but they never cry.
She remembered thinking the device was small, but in her hands it was large. She picked it up after she saw her father fall. She picked it up and said to herself, “climb the tower. Press the button. Run like hell.”
Every night she falls when she goes to sleep. The explosion had rocked the tower faster than she could get down. The flames licked at her back as if trying to pull her back into the chaos. She jumped. Panic seized her throat, but she didn’t cry out. She felt suspended in time as if it was right, it was proper, she had done well.
She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the end, but instead she was caught. Caught in the arms of a tall, thin man with a brown coat and a red bow tie. He was standing in the doorway of an impossible space ship that was the color of the birds of Rigelous 4.
“You,” she breathed with realization.
“Me,” he said with a crooked smile. “Ginger Hallows, I came to tell you. Run!”